1 Our Teacher Is a Witch Daisy Martinez grabbed her best friend Blanca’s arm and said Oooh I just love the Fall Festival I love wearing costumes playing games and eating candy apples What do you think our class should do for a booth at the festival She pointed at the sign in the hall at Townsend Elementary In big orange letters it read Annual Fall Festival Fun For Everyone I don’t know yet Blanca said but I’m sure we’ll think of something It has to be better than Madison’s idea Daisy said Just then the warning bell rang Daisy and Blanca ran down the hall to room 210 They didn’t want to be late for class 4
The two girls stepped inside room 210 Ms Lilly was wearing a long black dress Her curly black hair looked wild and she had on some extremely pointy black boots When she turned around Daisy nearly jumped Her teacher’s face was green in celebration of Halloween Since their visit to see the King Tut exhibit at the museum Daisy’s class had spent the past fi ve weeks studying holidays First it was the Chinese New Year then Valentine’s Day after that St Patrick’s Day next Cinco de Mayo and fi nally Fourth of July As usual Ms Lilly made everything so much fun Her class spent hours learning about the Chinese calendar Daisy was born in the Year of the Ox And Ms Lilly got Ms Pearl the cafeteria manager to let them make fortune cookies in the school kitchen Min taught Daisy and Blanca how to use chopsticks for their report For each of the holidays they had learned the history culture 5
and traditions related to the celebration Daisy wondered what Ms Lilly had in store for Halloween She didn’t have to wait long Ms Lilly said Monday we will be having a pumpkin-carving contest so bring your creative ideas superstars Then she told the class all about jack-o lanterns Next she explained about All Saints Day and All Souls Day Then she gave them some facts about the Day of the Dead Daisy and Blanca didn’t need to learn about el dia de la muerte Every year both of their families honored the dead in the traditional ways Ms Lilly told the class the plan for the day She said after lunch she would be reading aloud to them from The Wizard of Oz I think the Wicked Witch of the West was really misunderstood Poor dear Ms Lilly said She only had those awful monkeys for friends You’ll see when we get to that part in the book 6
Daisy was thinking about another witch The Witch of Blackbird Pond was a book her school librarian Mrs Warrick suggested for her to read Daisy trusted her librarian and the cover of the book looked good so she had checked it out Never judge a book by the cover Mrs Warrick liked to say or you might miss a real adventure After the story Ms Lilly had them do an activity with nouns verbs adjectives and 7
